Posted by Geraint on Apr 30, 2010 in
e-Marketing Let’s begin with the most important information first. Here is what we feel are the ten most important tips for anyone managing the email marketing process.
- Only send emails to persons who have requested to receive them.
- Only include content relevant to the type of content the person has requested.
- Be consistent with your sending frequency. Pick a schedule, whether it is weekly, biweekly, or monthly and as often as you can stick to that schedule.
- In most cases it is best to send business to business emails Tuesday through Thursday. We’ve found that the best times of the day to send are just after the start of the day around 9:30am or just after lunch around 1:30pm. It is best to avoid sending business to business emails after 4pm or on weekends.
- In most cases it is best to send business to consumer emails either between 5pm and 8pm Tuesday through Thursday or between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.
- To improve deliverability, add a message at the top of your emails that says something like: “To ensure receipt of our emails, please add something@yourcompany.com to your Address Book.”
- Make the From Name for your messages either your company name or the name of a person at your company. Once you choose a From Name, keep it consistent. During the split second decision subscribers make whether to open your email, the most important factor in their decision is whether the From Name is familiar to them.
- Be sure to include both a plain text and an HTML version of your newsletter. Our System will automatically detect which subscribers can view the HTML message and which can only see the plain text message. If you don’t include a plain text message, around 5% of your recipients will see a message with nothing in it.
- Don’t use all caps or multiple exclamation marks within your subject line or body. Doing this will trigger spam filters.
- Build your list at every opportunity you have. If you have a retail location, add a point-of-sale sign-up form. At conferences or events, bring a paper sign-up form or have a laptop with a sign-up form set up and available for interested parties. Finally, add your newsletter signup form to every page on your web site. You can use the signup form generator within our system to automatically generate the code you need.
Tags: e-mail, e-mail marketing, e-Marketing
Posted by Geraint on Apr 28, 2010 in
e-Marketing What good is sending an email if it doesn’t get opened??? Today I’d like to share an article on how to maximize your open rates by writing really good subject lines. Enjoy!
For most people, a majority of emails received are junk email. As a result, each of us has developed a little ritual we follow when checking our email. Initially, most people look first at the subject lines to determine whether to read a message. Today, however, studies have shown that recipients glance at the “From” field to see if they recognize the sender’s name or email address. Then, only if they recognize the From Name do they look at the “Subject” field to see if it’s of interest to them. This is why we recommend using a From Name that is either your organization’s name or a well known person within your organization—and to keep that name consistent with every mailing.
Regarding subject lines, we have found a good strategy to be having one part of the subject line be consistent, and the other be variable. This way recipients can recognize your newsletter when it comes in as well as get a small taste as to what type of information might be featured for that issue.
Some examples of bad subject lines are:
The PermissionBased Email Marketing Monthly for September, 1 2005 from [YourCompany]
This subject line is simply too long. We recommend keeping subject lines between 20 and 50 characters whenever possible. This 84 character subject line is likely to get cut off in most email clients and could cause the message to have a higher chance of being blocked by a content based spam filter.
[FNAME]’S ENTREPRENEURS CHRONICLE FOR SEPTEMBER
This subject line is in all caps, which will increase the change the message will get blocked by content based spam filters.
Garden Tips
This subject line doesn’t provide any information as to what the message is about. We would recommend adding at least what month the message is for.
OxyPowder Special – Save £10 Today Only Buy Now!!!!
This subject line includes both a pound sign (£) and multiple exclamation points. Both of these things would cause the message to have a higher chance of being blocked by a content based spam filter.
Here’s is a revised version of each of these subject lines:
- PermissionBased Email Marketing Monthly for September
- Geraint’s Entrepreneuers’ Chronicle for March
- Garden Tips Monthly – Are Year Round Orchids Possible?
- OxyPowder Special: 15% Off
By following these tips on From Names and Subject Lines you can maximize the chance of your message being opened by your recipients.
Tags: e-mail, e-mail marketing, e-Marketing
Posted by Geraint on Apr 26, 2010 in
e-Marketing I don’t think anyone likes SPAM. In fact, most of us despise it! So naturally, you don’t want to be perceived as a spammer. Thus, in today’s article I talk about how you can ensure you don’t get labeled as a spammer by mistake.
What Is Spam?
Spam is unsolicited email, also known as junk mail or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email).
If you send any email in bulk to more than a handful of recipients who have not requested to receive it, it will be considered spam, regardless of the contents of the email. By sending email to only to those who have requested to receive it, you are following accepted permission-based email guidelines.
There are numerous laws restricting spam, including the United States’ CAN-SPAM Act, the Australian Spam Act of 2003, and other laws specific to a country, province, or state.
How Can I Avoid Sending Spam?
Our system is a permission-based email-marketing tool that follows the most stringent permission-based philosophies in order to protect users from sending spam:
- Communication – Your subscriber registration page must state why you are collecting the site visitor’s email address and how you plan to use their address. Additionally, by accepting our license agreement you have agreed to not sell or rent your lists.
- Verification – we can automatically sends all of your new subscribers an email confirming their interest in receiving emails from you to ensure that they have agreed to be on your mailing list.
- Unsubscription – Every email generated from our system contains an unsubscribe link which automatically updates your subscriber lists in order to prevent the distribution of unwanted emails to visitors who have unsubscribed.
Here Are Some Questions You Can Ask To Ensure You Are Not Sending Any Spam:
- Are you importing a purchased list of ANY kind?
- Are you sending to non-specific addresses such as: sales@domain.com, business@domain.com, webmaster@domain.com, info@domain.com, or other general addresses?
- Do you have any abuse@, postmaster@, or hostmaster@ domains on your list?
- Are you sending to distribution lists or mailing lists which indirectly send to a variety of email addresses?
- Are you mailing to anyone who has not explicitly agreed to join your mailing list?
- Does your email’s subject line contain false or misleading information?
If you have answered “yes” to any of the above questions, you may be labeled as a spammer.
Need help with e-mail marketing? Let IT Pie run your campaigns for you ensuring you get the best results – contact us today for help.
Tags: e-mail marketing, e-Marketing, email marketing
Posted by Geraint on Apr 23, 2010 in
e-Marketing Did you know that the most important asset a business or non-profit has is their customer list? As they say, the “gold is in the list.” If you currently don’t have a sign-up form on the top fold of your homepage that is allowing you to build your list, I’d recommend putting one there today! Using our system you can ensure that potential customers sign-up to your mailing list without you needing to do anything!
First Of All, Why Is Your List Important?
Building lists of subscribers, prospects, and customers is one of the most important activities your business can undertake. Once built, permission-based email lists can create sales for your company for years to come.
Tip #1 For Building Your List: Networking
Whether you have an online or offline business, networking has always been an effective way to build relationships and generate sales. In most cases, people exchange business cards or pass along leads when meeting. This contact information is then used to build your database.
Quick Tip: After a networking opportunity, get in the habit of sending a quick email message (no more than 3 days later) to all of the people you spoke with. Start by recapping your conversation, and then ask each contact for permission to be add them to your email list.
Tip #2 For Building Your List: Trade Shows
Trade shows can be an excellent resource for gathering sales leads; consumers that attend trade shows are often the most qualified buyers, as they are paying to attend an event that is of interest to them. As long as the majority of exhibitors could be part of your target market, this is a wonderful resource for obtaining top quality contact information.
Quick Tip: Send a follow up email to everyone from the trade show. Mention that you met them at the trade show booth, explain how you can help them, and then ask for permission to include them on your email list.
Tip #3 For Building Your List: One to One Email Messages
Many non-selling employees, such as accounts payable or repair and maintenance personnel, regularly communicate with prospects or customers directly via email. Adding a link to your sign-up form within employee email signatures increases your exposure and potentially builds your database with every message you send.
Tags: e-Marketing, email marketing
Posted by Geraint on Apr 21, 2010 in
e-Marketing I think you’re in for a treat today. I’ll be writing about how and why email marketing can be used to convert prospects into customers and convert paying customers into lifetime evangelizers. Did you know that on average, for every $1 companies spend on email marketing $57 in sales are produced?
It is typical for email marketing campaigns to top the 2% conversion rates typically expected from direct mail.
In fact, email delivers the highest return-on-investment across marketing mediums by an eye-popping margin of $57.25 for every dollar spent on it in 2005, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s “The Power of Direct Marketing”(October 2006).
Not only that, but email is delivering sales at an average cost per order of less than $7! Compare this to the average costs per order of $71.89 for banner ads, $26.75 for paid search and $17.47 for affiliate programs, according to Shop.org’s “State of Retailing Online 2007” (September 2007).
These facts further support our belief that email marketing can be the highly lucrative tool that will take your business to the next level. The key to such success is knowing how to use email marketing.
Interested in sending e-mail from as little as 1p per email plus a flat fee of £5 per campaign using our professional system? Then contact IT Pie today
Tags: e-mail marketing, e-Marketing, email marketing
Posted by Geraint on Jan 1, 2010 in
Random
Happy New Year
So its 2010 and I’m sure some of you have a hang over and some of you are making your new year resolutions.
What ever your doing we hope you had a great night last night and wish you a Happy New Year
the IT Pie team
Tags: Happy New year, New Year
Posted by Geraint on Dec 25, 2009 in
Random 
Merry Christmas
We hope Father Christmas brought you everything you wanted and that you have a wonderful Christmas.
Merry Christmas
the IT Pie team
Tags: Christmas, Merry Christmas
Posted by Geraint on Dec 9, 2009 in
Random It was a web classic last year and now its back and better again. 
Make your friends, family and colleagues chuckle as they watch an elf version of you or anyone you know dance around the screen. You can create up to 5 elves then send it for all to see.
To Elf Yourself visit the website here www.elfyourself.com
Tags: Christmas fun, ElfYourself, website fun
So Christmas is upon us once again, last night I was in Winter Wonderland in Cardiff enjoying a glass of mulled wine after successfully avoiding falling over on the ice-rink and I thought, it’s probably about time I began some Christmas shopping, but what do I get for people?
Luckily we’ve worked with a wide variety of companies over the years and many of them may just provide the answer to my shopping query, so if you’re like me (disorganised and in need of some Christmas present ideas) below are some ideas.
- BillBandit – Do you know anyone who is disorganised with their paper (receipts, lists etc) then this clever little gem might be the answer to their problems!
- The Cardiff Devils – Know a sports fan out there who has or hasn’t seen the Devils play? Why not head to the rink for a match and discover the excitement of Ice Hockey.
- The Culinary Cottage – Know of any budding chefs? Why not visit the Culinary Cottage and learn how to cook some fantastic cuisine. With a wide range of courses available there’s something for every chef.
- Chocolate House – We all love chocolate, so why not pick some award winning chocolates for a loved one from the Chocolate House?
- Listhendig – Do you know someone who just hasn’t got enough bags? Well visit Listhendig and help them expand their collection further.
- Washington Gallery – Why not visit the Washington Gallery for some art or jewellery? You might even pick up a collectors piece by our own designers who regularly show their work at the Gallery.
- Penarth Yacht Club – Ever fancied taking to the high seas? How about joining the Penarth Yacht Club who provide sail training courses as well as sailing competitively and leisurely all year round.
All of the above are clients of IT Pie and hopefully will be able to provide you with some gifts this Christmas. To see a full range of our work please head over to the website (www.itpie.co.uk) and we hope you have a very Merry Christmas.
Tags: christmas present ideas, christmas presents, IT Pie websites, present ideas, Websites, websites by IT Pie
Posted by Geraint on Dec 1, 2009 in
Random,
Websites So it’s the 1st of December and in the IT Pie office we thought we’d ensure you have a chance of a white Christmas with this cheeky little script.
Simple right click and save one of the following images to your images folder on your website: 
Then copy and paste the below script into you web page after the <body> tag:
| <script type=”text/javascript”>
/******************************************
* Snow Effect Script- By Altan d.o.o. (http://www.altan.hr/snow/index.html)
* Visit Dynamic Drive DHTML code library (http://www.dynamicdrive.com/) for full source code
* Last updated Nov 9th, 05′ by DD. This notice must stay intact for use
******************************************/
//Configure below to change URL path to the snow image
var snowsrc=”images/snow.gif”
// Configure below to change number of snow to render
var no = 10;
// Configure whether snow should disappear after x seconds (0=never):
var hidesnowtime = 0;
// Configure how much snow should drop down before fading (”windowheight” or “pageheight”)
var snowdistance = “pageheight”;
///////////Stop Config//////////////////////////////////
var ie4up = (document.all) ? 1 : 0;
var ns6up = (document.getElementById&&!document.all) ? 1 : 0;
function iecompattest(){
return (document.compatMode && document.compatMode!=”BackCompat”)? document.documentElement : document.body
}
var dx, xp, yp; // coordinate and position variables
var am, stx, sty; // amplitude and step variables
var i, doc_width = 800, doc_height = 600;
if (ns6up) {
doc_width = self.innerWidth;
doc_height = self.innerHeight;
} else if (ie4up) {
doc_width = iecompattest().clientWidth;
doc_height = iecompattest().clientHeight;
}
dx = new Array();
xp = new Array();
yp = new Array();
am = new Array();
stx = new Array();
sty = new Array();
snowsrc=(snowsrc.indexOf(”dynamicdrive.com”)!=-1)? “snow.gif” : snowsrc
for (i = 0; i < no; ++ i) {
dx[i] = 0; // set coordinate variables
xp[i] = Math.random()*(doc_width-50); // set position variables
yp[i] = Math.random()*doc_height;
am[i] = Math.random()*20; // set amplitude variables
stx[i] = 0.02 + Math.random()/10; // set step variables
sty[i] = 0.7 + Math.random(); // set step variables
if (ie4up||ns6up) {
if (i == 0) {
document.write(”<div id=\”dot”+ i +”\” style=\”POSITION: absolute; Z-INDEX: “+ i +”; VISIBILITY: visible; TOP: 15px; LEFT: 15px;\”><a href=\”http://dynamicdrive.com\”><img src=’”+snowsrc+”‘ border=\”0\”><\/a><\/div>”);
} else {
document.write(”<div id=\”dot”+ i +”\” style=\”POSITION: absolute; Z-INDEX: “+ i +”; VISIBILITY: visible; TOP: 15px; LEFT: 15px;\”><img src=’”+snowsrc+”‘ border=\”0\”><\/div>”);
}
}
}
function snowIE_NS6() { // IE and NS6 main animation function
doc_width = ns6up?window.innerWidth-10 : iecompattest().clientWidth-10;
doc_height=(window.innerHeight && snowdistance==”windowheight”)? window.innerHeight : (ie4up && snowdistance==”windowheight”)? iecompattest().clientHeight : (ie4up && !window.opera && snowdistance==”pageheight”)? iecompattest().scrollHeight : iecompattest().offsetHeight;
for (i = 0; i < no; ++ i) { // iterate for every dot
yp[i] += sty[i];
if (yp[i] > doc_height-50) {
xp[i] = Math.random()*(doc_width-am[i]-30);
yp[i] = 0;
stx[i] = 0.02 + Math.random()/10;
sty[i] = 0.7 + Math.random();
}
dx[i] += stx[i];
document.getElementById(”dot”+i).style.top=yp[i]+”px”;
document.getElementById(”dot”+i).style.left=xp[i] + am[i]*Math.sin(dx[i])+”px”;
}
snowtimer=setTimeout(”snowIE_NS6()”, 10);
}
function hidesnow(){
if (window.snowtimer) clearTimeout(snowtimer)
for (i=0; i<no; i++) document.getElementById(”dot”+i).style.visibility=”hidden”
}
if (ie4up||ns6up){
snowIE_NS6();
if (hidesnowtime>0)
setTimeout(”hidesnow()”, hidesnowtime*1000)
}
</script> |
Ensure that the ‘var snowsrc=”images/snow.gif”‘ points at the image you have just saved (you may need to rename the file) and there you go. A White Christmas on your website.
Hope you enjoy
The IT Pie team
Thanks to Dynamic Drive and the author Sasa Skevin for the script.
Tags: Christmas, snow effect, website, website fun
